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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26165593">Milk’s Good Too</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morning66/pseuds/Morning66'>Morning66</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>First Kiss, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Swearing, Teenagers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:54:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,277</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26165593</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morning66/pseuds/Morning66</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“You aren’t happy to see me? Ouch! My heart! It’s tearing in two!” Richie cries in an accent too bad for Eddie to even recognize.</p>
<p>“I am,” Eddie says quickly, not wanting to dwell on that part. “But you’re supposed to be in Vermont.”</p>
<p>(Or, Richie skips the Derry High ski trip when Eddie can’t go.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>141</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Milk’s Good Too</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi!!!!!! </p>
<p>I’ve never wrote for It before so we’ll see how this goes! =D</p>
<p>Warnings: Swearing, Homophobia (a few slurs), mentions of sex and porn, but nothing explicit</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Richie’s the one who finds the flier.</p>
<p>It’s October of their sophomore year when he slaps it down on the lunch table with a loud clap, a ragged looking sheet of printer paper, torn at the top where he obviously ripped it off the wall. His skinny hand stretches across the crumpled paper, nails jagged enough to almost be considered claws, cuticles still a bit black from when he’d painted them two weeks ago. </p>
<p>(He’d had Bev do them when she came to visit that Friday after school, insisting that all the rockstars did it. He’d kept it on until Sunday night when he scrubbed it off roughly with acetone, insisting that he hated it, though The Losers couldn’t help but wonder if he’d just been too chicken to show up to school with it on, this being Derry after all.)</p>
<p>Ski Club, it says across the front in big, bold letters. Meetings every other Thursday is printed underneath in smaller font. There’s  a hand drawn picture of a stick figure jumping off a slope that someone (quite possibly Richie) has added a large dick to.</p>
<p>“See! I’m a genius, guys! A fucking genius!” Richie takes his dirty palm off the sheet to gesture at it as if he’s one of those girls on a game show showing off some fancy car you could possibly (but probably won’t) win.</p>
<p>“Language, Mr. Tozier!“ A lunch monitor hovering nearby calls out, a suspicious expression seared onto his face. “Don’t make me write you up!”</p>
<p>“Yes, sir!” Richie echoes in a deep voice with a British accent, miming a part salute, part bow gesture that’s too obsequious to look anything but phony. The lunch monitor sighs deeply and shoots Richie one last glare before striding away towards a group of girls with skirts several inches shorter than the Derry High School requirements. He was their bio teacher last year and must remember that keeping Richie quiet and appropriate is impossible, or at least much less possible than enforcing the dress code.</p>
<p>There’s a pause after that as if the Losers are trying to think up what to say. “I d-d-don’t get it, Richie,” Bill finally says. “You want us to go skiing?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know how to ski,” Ben informs them helpfully before the others can respond.</p>
<p>“Of course you don’t,” Richie whispers under his breath, low enough that only Stan hears, but the look he shoots Richie is sizzling, for him at least, which means it’s just vaguely warm for anyone else.</p>
<p>“Do you realize how many people die in skiing accidents every year?” Eddie asks, voice high and fast, from across the table as he starts to swab down the surface with a sanitized wipe that smells blindingly of alcohol, but not the good kind that they're just starting to indulge in. “It’s usually about—“</p>
<p>“The list is shorter than my dick, that’s for sure!” Richie snaps, forgetting that he was about to explain the whole ski club thing.</p>
<p>“That’s so gross,” Eddie says loudly, tossing his now used Purell wipe at Richie.</p>
<p>“You’re mom didn’t think it was gross when she—“ Richie doesn’t finish the sentence, instead making kissing and sucking motions with his lips, pink tongue sticking out every now and again.</p>
<p>Two spots of pink appear on Eddie’s cheeks, high by where his summer freckles are just starting to fade. He starts to say something, but Bill cuts him off, reaching out to put a hand on Richie’s chest. “C-c-cut it out, guys.” He rolls his eyes at them. “Anyway, what’s this Ski Club stuff about, Richie?”</p>
<p>Richie grins because that’s what he’d been on about. “Well, I’m glad you asked, Big Bill, my man.  See look here,” Richie reaches out and traces a finger under one of the lines in the text. </p>
<p>“The cul-min-a-tion,” Richie starts, pronouncing each syllable of the word in turn, “is a trip to Snowy Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont. Ver-fucking-mont!”</p>
<p>He grins around the table as if expecting a round of applause. “That means we can get out of this shithole,” he adds as if they might have missed it.</p>
<p>“Wow! That is pretty cool, Rich!” Ben says with a grin. “Maybe skiing could be fun!”</p>
<p>“Does it cost a lot, though?” Stan asks, looking a little worried. Stan was always a little worried about money because his family never really seemed to have enough, even with his dad’s position as a rabbi.</p>
<p>“We won’t even have to worry about that, Stan the Man. They say here we can sell chocolate bars. I’m sure Eddie’s mom will buy all of mine!”</p>
<p>“Beep beep, Richie!” Eddie starts from across the table, chucking a French fry from his plate at his friend. Richie catches it adeptly and tosses it in his mouth with a wide grid, chewing with his mouth still open.</p>
<p>“Gross,” Stan chastises him mildly, shaking his head, but in a joking way. “But, in all seriousness, maybe it could work, Rich.”</p>
<p>Bill finishes chewing a bite of his corn dog and swallows. “Yeah, it sounds fun! You think M-M- Mike would be allowed to come?”  </p>
<p>“Probably,” Ben said with a smile. “I mean, he lives inside the boundaries of the district so he can probably join clubs and stuff.”</p>
<p>They spent the rest of the lunch talking about the trip, but right then and there it was decided. The Losers were going on the Derry High ski trip and nothing could stop them.</p>
<p>(Well, except maybe Sonia Kaspbrak)</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p><br/><br/>“Why the fuck are you being such a sour puss?” Richie asks as he and Eddie unchain their bikes that afternoon. It’s a bright sunny day outside, too sunny for a town like Derry that’s rotting away from the inside like the old trailer Richie’s uncle used to own that had a leak in the hot water tank. Despite the bright weather, a hint of cold is beginning to show through, foretelling the winter to come.</p>
<p>Eddie slips the lock into his backpack and zips it shut, shrugging his shoulders. He interlocks the clasps on his backpack and fastens the bands tightly against his stomach just above the belt of his fanny pack.</p>
<p>(“Just because the pills are fucking gazebos doesn’t mean I don’t need the fanny pack, Richie! What if I, or you because you’re an absolute idiot, get cut and need bandages! Or Neosporin! Or rubbing alcohol! Or an epi pen! Allergies can develop late in life, you know.”)</p>
<p>“Aw, c’mon, Eds!” Eddie gives a half hearted grunt at the unwelcome nickname. Richie reaches for Eddie’s cheek with a grimy hand. “You look so cute when you pout!”</p>
<p>It’s a joke, it’s always a joke when Richie says it, but today it feels a little different, a little more truthful or a little more of a lie, he’s not sure. Maybe it’s because Eddie does look cute, still several inches shorter than Richie, standing there every bit the model schoolboy in his fucking backpack strap.</p>
<p><em>What the fuck?</em> Richie thinks when that thought runs through his brain. He promptly banishes it, shreds it into tiny little places, and puts it into a dark, dusty coroner of his mind where it’ll hopefully get covered in spiderwebs beyond all recognition. It’ll live there, or preferably die there, next to Connor Bowers and carving R + E onto the kissing bridge at thirteen and every time he’s looked too long at a guy, a graveyard of unwanted memories.</p>
<p>Eddie knocks Richie’s hand out of the way before he can even get close enough to pinch his cheek. “Your hands are so dirty,” He says, as if in explanation. Then he sighs and shakes his head. “My mom probably won’t let me go on the ski trip, Rich. You know her.”</p>
<p>He says the last part quietly, an admission he’s obviously not happy to have to make. Richie frowns, because he knows Mrs. K, knows her all too well, even if their relationship is nowhere near as, ehm, intimate as he always claims. He’d have thought she’d have lightened by now, with Eddie being a high schooler and all and not being so pint sized anymore. </p>
<p>Maybe that was why she’d cracked down, Richie thought. Eddie was growing up, getting to an age where he should definitely be becoming more independent and soon he would be off to college, probably to be a doctor or safety advocate or something just as stupid. Maybe that scared Mrs. K and she wanted to keep him here.</p>
<p>Richie pulls a hand off his bike and reaches it around Eddie’s shoulders, gangly and pale. “We’ll figure it out,” he says, sounding confident. “I mean, you know I’ve got a lotta sway.”</p>
<p>Richie waggles his eyebrows in a way that he hopes implies a million dirty jokes all rolled into one and unhands Eddie.</p>
<p>Eddie rolls his eyes. “I wish you did.”</p>
<p>“Shit, Eds, are you doubting me? I’m practically your stepfather!” Richie steps over the bar of his bike, absentmindedly clenching his hand brakes. “Have faith in good ol’ Sir Richie, my good chap!”</p>
<p>He says the last part in his British Voice, volume raising enthusiastically. </p>
<p>“You realize your accent is literally getting worse exponentially, right, Sir Trashmouth? Exponentially, like in fucking algebra!”</p>
<p>“You know you love my mouth, Ed’s!” Richie yells, taking off on his bike because he doesn’t want to hear Eddie’s protests.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p><br/><br/>Surprisingly, his mother eventually agrees to the trip.</p>
<p>When he brings it up that Friday, she throws a fit, a crying sobbing fit that makes Eddie hurt down to his bones.</p>
<p>“But, Eddie, don’t you know how many people die in skiing accidents every year?” She sobs to him, eyes glistening as he tells her over pork chops that he wants to go on the ski trip with his friends.</p>
<p>“Mommy, I actually do and—“</p>
<p>“Then you know why you can’t go, Eddie-bear! You’re fragile, you realize that, right baby? Remember when you broke your arm?”</p>
<p>Of course Eddie remembers when he broke his arm. How could he not remember that terrifying, traumatizing, life-defining summer? He can’t tell his mom that, though, because she’d probably think he was going crazy and try and put him on another fucking medication. “I do, but—“</p>
<p>“Eddie, if you go skiing, you’ll end up in a body cast, don’t you understand?”</p>
<p>Eddie doesn’t say that she’d probably like it if he were in a body cast, if he couldn’t do anything but lie down all day. Then, she’d wait on him, doting over him constantly, having him directly under her thumb for months.</p>
<p>Eddie must not respond quick enough because Sonia Kaspbrak continues. “And, anyway dear, those friend of yours are bad influences. Goodness knows what they’d have you up to on a trip like that!”</p>
<p>She shovels a rather large bite of meat into her mouth, as if declaring the matter over with.</p>
<p>“They really aren’t, Mommy. I know some of them look strange,” Eddie says, thinking of Richie and the oversized Hawaiian shirts he likes to wear over his t-shirts, “but—“</p>
<p>“Eddie-bear.” His mother puts down her fork and leans her rather large body towards him. The tears are gone from her eyes for now, replaced with a sort of firmness. “Dear, I didn’t want to get into this with you, not over dinner because it is very unsettling, but I have reason to believe that some of your friends might be,” She pauses as if trying to convey the gravity of her statement. “Queer.”</p>
<p>She spits the last word, as if it’s dirty and ugly and every disease all rolled up into one. It hits Eddie like a punch to the gut, but he doesn’t want to think about why. “Th-they’re not like that! They aren’t.”</p>
<p>It’s the truth. Sure, the guys don’t have girlfriends, but it’s not for lack of trying. It’s just that they’re, well, Losers.</p>
<p>“You remember about AIDS, don’t you Eddie?”</p>
<p>Eddie had been maybe seven or eight when she’d sat him down and told him that there was a disease that was infecting bad men, rotting out their bodies and making them into husks of what they had once been. He’d listened enraptured, eyes wide and scared while she’d spoke. Later on, she’d explained that there were other ways to get the bad men disease, ways a good little boy like him could get it, like from drops of blood on dirty poles in hangnails.</p>
<p>“Mom, that’s crazy! None of my friends have freaking AIDS!” He just nearly says the real thing instead of freaking but substituted it out at the last minute, earning him a severe glance</p>
<p>Sonia Kaspbrak shakes head, “You never know, Eddie-bear. You never know.”</p>
<p>Eddie spends the next day trying to convince her to no avail. He watches soaps with her, the boring ones he hates that she somehow cares enough about to cry over and during the commercials he promises to take it easy, promises to not even put on skis as long as she lets him go.</p>
<p>Sonia doesn’t let up, though and Eddie goes to sleep with a heavy feeling in his gut that this was no use, that no matter what he won’t be allowed to go.</p>
<p>Then, on Sunday, a miracle happens. His mother tells him over breakfast (eggs and bacon—“a hearty breakfast for my growing boy!”) she tells him he can go.</p>
<p>“If you don’t go on anything steep, Eddie-bear, promise me, won’t you?”</p>
<p>“Yes, Mommy!” He practically squeals.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p><br/><br/>“So you can come? Like you’re sure?” Richie asks Eddie as they go to pick up the fundraiser chocolates after school a week later.</p>
<p>Eddie flashes him a grin. “Yeah, she’s fucking finally letting me do something!” He says with a roll of his eyes.</p>
<p>Richie grins back and Eddie’s stomach flips. “Nice, man!” He holds up a hand for a high five and Eddie slaps it, hating the voice in the back of his head that reminds him there’s millions of germs on the average hand and since it’s Richie’s it’s probably even more than that, maybe even billions.</p>
<p>“Fuck, though, I really don’t know which I should do though.” Richie’s voice, not especially loud, echoes in the empty hallway.</p>
<p>Eddie shoots his friend a questioning look. “What?”</p>
<p>“Well, I could go on the ski trip, which would be cool, or I could come over to your house and do your mom without having to worry about being quiet so I didn’t wake you.”</p>
<p>“I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth!”</p>
<p>“Maybe in your pants,” Richie comments, still too loud.</p>
<p>Eddie kicks his friend’s sneaker hard and is about to say something when he realizes they just got to the sponsor’s door. They pick up the chocolates, two big cardboard boxes full of them with Maine’s Finest printed on the sides in red ink. The one Eddie’s carrying is dented on one side and he hopes that the chocolates inside aren’t damaged.</p>
<p>“Aw, Eddie, you’re so strong for a short guy,” Richie comments as they lug the chocolates toward the front door.</p>
<p>“You’re pretty weak, even for a twig, dickwad,” Eddie comments as they step out into the afternoon grayness. </p>
<p>Richie promptly plops his box down on the cement stares and reaches in the side of his bag and pulls out a box cutter. They aren’t supposed to have those things at school, but Eddie doesn’t say anything. He gets wanting to always have something to protect you on your person at all times. Maybe he gets it too well. Richie carries the knife even though it won’t ward off the real bad things the same way Eddie still carries his inhaler even though it won’t do anything to stop his nonexistent asthma attacks.</p>
<p>It’s all psychological, the kind of psychological shit that results from going through hell and back before you’re even fifteen.</p>
<p>Richie flips the blade out and cuts the packaging tape, revealing row upon row of chocolates.”Want one?”</p>
<p>Before Eddie can respond, he tosses him a crunch bar, Eddie’s favorite.</p>
<p>“These are for selling,” Eddie tells him, but it lacks bite. He’s already pealing back the wrapper of his bar, as Richie follows suit.</p>
<p>When the chocolate hits his tongue, Richie lets out a moan that, in Eddie’s opinion, is just a little too sensual to be for something as benign as chocolate. He looks around, his face flushing a little bit, but there’s no one there except for a lone couple about ten feet away, deep in conversation. The boy wears a letterman jacket, the girl a Derry High Cheer sweatshirt. There’s tears streaming down her face as the boy gestures with his hand, voice too low to be heard by the two Losers.</p>
<p>Needless to say, neither of them are paying them any mind.</p>
<p>“We should bring snacks on the trip,” Eddie suggests. “Candy or cookies or something.”</p>
<p>Richie gulps down the last bit of his bar and Eddie can’t help but watch the way his throat bobs out. “We’ll get Ben to bring them. You know his mom always has the shit.”</p>
<p>Richie’s right. Of all their parents, Ben’s mom’s always been the best about getting the good stuff—cookies and candies and ice cream, name brand stuff too even though they probably don’t have the money for it. Eddie’s mom, well, she has snacks too, but it’s always granola bars and protein packs and stupid healthy things she finds discounted at the Shop a Lot because nobody else in Derry wants them.</p>
<p>Richie’s parents would have to remember they have a son for all of thirty seconds to even think about buying treats for him.</p>
<p>Then, Richie grins. “You’ll never guess what I’ve got to bring!”</p>
<p>“A trashmouth?” Eddie asks. “Because I think we all know that.”</p>
<p>Richie rolls his eyes and leans in. “Titty magazines. I found them in my dad’s closet in an old shoebox. Like fucking Playboys and stuff.”</p>
<p>“No way!” Eddie calls, not sure what to think.</p>
<p>“Yes, way! I mean, they’re oldies, but oldies are goodies, know what I mean, Eds?”</p>
<p>Eddie doesn’t even correct Richie about the nickname because his brain doesn’t make it that far. He doesn’t know what Richie means. Not at all. </p>
<p>“Awesome!” Eddie says, trying to muster the expected enthusiasm. </p>
<p>Porn’s not really his thing, he thinks. Thinking about girl’s parts, what lies underneath skirts and bras, that doesn’t really interest him too much. It’s probably because he likes what’s on the inside, though, he reminds himself. He’s a charming, kind man and he’d worry about dates and flowers and holding hands before he thought about boobs.</p>
<p>They stand on the steps for a little too long, not ready yet to walk home with the heavy boxes. Eddie unzips his backpack and checks to make sure all his notebooks are there, which they are because he’s a neat and organized student, unlike some people. Richie fiddles with his wrapper, tearing it into silver streaks that he lets rain down on Eddie’s head like confetti.</p>
<p>“Hey!” Eddie scrambles up from the ground. “What are you doing, asshole?”</p>
<p>“It’s in your hair, Eds!” Richie says and before Eddie can say anything, his friend is reaching out a scrawny hand and running it through his hair. “I’ll get them out for you.”</p>
<p>Richie runs his hand through Eddie’s hair slow and steady, back and forth, on the front steps of their high school, for all of Derry to see. Eddie feels warm all over, too warm for November, but maybe there’s a heat spell coming in. Maybe. Eddie should probably tell Richie to stop, or better yet, actually step away and stop him, but it feels calming and safe in a way that Derry isn’t.</p>
<p>This is why Richie confuses Eddie, because one minute they’re talking about Playboys and girls and shit and the next Richie is running a hand through his hair or edging a hand onto his thigh as they lie pressed together in the hammock or tackling Eddie to the dirty ground, wrestling with him until Eddie yells about his fake asthma.</p>
<p>It doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>Then again, nothing about his life really made sense since he was thirteen and a fucking supernatural clown killed his best friend’s brother, so maybe it all works out.</p>
<p>“What are you fags doing up there?” It’s the letterman guy, who’s turned to look at them, and, yes, he’s definitely a football player and a muscular one at that. </p>
<p>“At least we didn’t just cheat on our girlfriends with whores!” Richie yells, taking his hand out of Eddie’s hair faster than he can blink.</p>
<p>From the anguished sob the girl lets out, Richie’s guessed at least partially correctly.</p>
<p>“What did you say?” The football player starts up towards them. </p>
<p>Eddie thinks fast. “He wanted to know if you wanted free candy!”</p>
<p>They pay the older boy off with five peanut butter bars (that really shouldn’t be packed in the same box as regular bars, Eddie thinks). They give the girl two crunches because she still looks so distraught and she manages a watery smile that doesn’t reach her red rimmed eyes.</p>
<p>“At least they’re lighter,” Richie says as they walk home carrying the damaged goods.</p>
<p>Eddie wishes he had a free arm to flip him off.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p><br/><br/>“My mom won’t let me go on the fucking trip!” Eddie whisper-yells over the walkie talkie, his voice coming out blurred by static and anger. “Over.”</p>
<p>He adds the last part after a pause, as if as an afterthought.</p>
<p>It’s the day of the trip and Richie has approximately three hours and three minutes to pack and get to the bus before it leaves at six tonight. He’d been just throwing in a spare pair of underwear because he isn’t totally gross, okay, when the old walkie talkie had crackled and then there was Eddie’s voice, loud and clear in his room.</p>
<p>He’d known it was Eddie because Eddie was the only one with the other walkie talkie. It had been a present from Richie for his fourteenth birthday, a way to talk where good old Mrs. K wouldn’t be listening, ears perked, from halfway across the room. It was the only birthday of Eddie’s Richie had actually remembered to get him a gift on time and using it gave him a funny feeling of pride in his chest.</p>
<p>“What do you mean she won’t?” Richie doesn’t even start with the over shit.</p>
<p>“She won’t. Says my forehead’s warm, that I’m running a fucking temperature! My forehead feels fine! I feel fine!”</p>
<p>“Jesus fucking Christ, Eddie!” Richie practically yells into the walkie talkie, glad for once his parents aren’t home. “That bitch!”</p>
<p>“And I can’t sneak out either because she won’t give me the permission slip and she’s probably already called the school and told them I’m sick for the eighteen hundredth time this year and told them I’m on my deathbed and can’t go!” Eddie’s voice raises at the end in indignation. “Fuck, Rich.”</p>
<p>“Well, I definitely won’t be fucking her for a long time,” Richie declares. “Unless it’s hate sex.”</p>
<p>Eddie laughs into his walkie talkie, but it’s a bitter laugh, bitter like the dark chocolate bars they never did finish selling, slowly melting where Richie left them next to his heating vent.</p>
<p>“Tell the guys, okay? That I’m not coming. You guys all have fun. Over.” With that, Eddie signs off, leaving Richie alone in an empty house.</p>
<p>Richie stares at his unpacked backpack, the pair of underwear that has fallen out and is now resting on his floor next to a pile of dirty clothes. He thinks for all of ten seconds and then bolts out the door, heading for Stan’s.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p><br/><br/>Eddie’s eating a jelly sandwich, sitting cross-legged on his bed, when the knocks come.</p>
<p>It’s a little after eight, but the sky is already pitch black outside. He’d refused dinner out of protest, claiming that if he were so ill he’d better stay in his room unbothered.</p>
<p>“Eddie-bear!” His mother had cried, a tear, fat like everything else about her, he thought, rolling down her cheek. “Don’t be like that! You know I only want what’s best for you.”</p>
<p>Some part of Eddie, a part that was still five years old, a part that Eddie hated and pitied in equal measures, had wanted to apologize and go and eat with her and watch soaps for the rest of the night. Instead, he slammed the door and slipped his chair under the knob because there wasn’t a lock. </p>
<p>He’d waited until eight to get food, knowing that by then his mother would have fallen asleep in front of the TV. He’d ignored the leftover chicken she’d left out on the counter, cold and greasy, in favor of slathering strawberry jelly between two slabs of white bread. There was no peanut butter, there was never any peanut butter because his mother still insisted he was allergic.</p>
<p>And so, there he is, miserable and thinking about how he should have used grape jelly, when he hears the knocking.</p>
<p>It surprises him and a jolt of fear runs through his body, a nerve firing that learned how to fire that summer they defeated It.  It’s coming from his window, he realizes, and drags himself to his feat. There’s somebody at the window, somebody who’s probably perched on the tree branch, the one that stretches across like an arm, banging against the panes of glass when there’s a storm.</p>
<p>Somebody with curly dark hair and dirty coke bottle glasses.</p>
<p>“What are you doing here?” Eddie demands as Richie tumbles in headfirst, landing in a pile near the base of his desk.</p>
<p>“You aren’t happy to see me? Ouch! My heart! It’s tearing in two!” Richie cries in an accent too bad for Eddie to even recognize.</p>
<p>“I am,” Eddie says quickly, not wanting to dwell on that part. “But you’re supposed to be in Vermont.”</p>
<p>Richie, having scrambled off the floor, puts an arm around Eddie’s neck. “Couldn’t let my little Eddie Spaghetti be all alone, could I?”</p>
<p>He nuzzles his face into Eddie’s neck and Eddie’s cheeks burn. His heartbeat is quickening and he hopes to God that Richie can’t tell, but he must be able to because he’s right up against the pulse point they taught him to find during the Derry Community Center’s first aid course his mom made him go to.</p>
<p>Eddie shrugs off Richie abruptly. “You’re the one who wanted to go! I mean it was your idea in the first place.”</p>
<p>Eddie can’t be sure, but he thinks Richie’s face is just ever so slightly pink. “And now it was my idea not to go, Eds, so can’t you just be happy I’m here?”</p>
<p>There’s a note of something in his voice. Something that Eddie doesn’t understand. Something vulnerable.</p>
<p>“‘Course I am,” Eddie says and means it this time and maybe Richie can hear something in his voice because he grins wide, the type of grin that as of lately makes Eddie feel like someone’s physically turned him upside down. </p>
<p>“Your mom asleep?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, in front of the TV.”</p>
<p>“Awesome!” Richie belly flops onto Eddie’s twin mattress.</p>
<p>“Take your shoes off. You’re getting my comforter dirty!” Eddie says. Richie flips him off, but obeys, then pats the bed next to him. </p>
<p>“C’mon, Eddie! I brought comics!” He says, waving something he must have brought in his dirty backpack.</p>
<p>Eddie stretches out next to Richie, both of them lying on their stomachs. Their legs and arms and sides press up against each other, giving Eddie a moderate zinging all over. It reminds him of how they share the hammock even though none of the other Losers lie there together. Except this feels different because there’s no one else here to see, no one but the two of them in the entire city limits of Derry.</p>
<p>Richie pulls out the new Batman edition, cover bent irreversibly from his bag. He spreads it out in front of them, propping it up against the headboard of Eddie’s bed, turning the pages in a way that makes his hand touch Eddie’s every time he turns the page.</p>
<p>Batman’s just about to hit the Joker with his grappling hook when Richie starts pointing wildly at Eddie’s headboard. </p>
<p>“Hey! You still have it!” </p>
<p>Eddie stares at where he’s pointing and then see’s the small R carved into the headboard where Richie’s pointing. The other boy had done it when they were eight with a pocket knife he’d stolen from the Five and Dime. </p>
<p>“I did it on my own,” Richie had explained then, not yet so crass. “Now, I’m doing it on yours.”</p>
<p>Eddie smiles. “My mom never could scrub it off, dickwad,” he explains, good natured despite the insult. </p>
<p>“Do you mind?” Richie asks.</p>
<p>Eddie shrugs his shoulders and they bump against Richie’s. “Not really.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t say that he likes it. He doesn’t say that sometimes he finds it in the dark and traces it, images of sewers and clowns still playing across his mind from a nightmare.</p>
<p>Richie doesn’t say anything, just turns the page. Batman hits Joker with his grappling hook and he goes tumbling off a fire escape and into an alley below. He’ll be fine, Eddie knows. The villains in comic books are always alright, ready to come back for the next installment.</p>
<p>(Eddie hopes things aren’t like that in real life, for their sake.)</p>
<p>“My mom ran the thermometer under hot water,” Eddie says out of nowhere when they finish the comic. “Heated it up to fake a fever.”</p>
<p>Richie turns to look at him and there’s barely any space between them. “That’s fucked,” Richie says.</p>
<p>It’s about the only thing there is to say. </p>
<p>“My whole existence is fucked,” Eddie says and lays his head down on his crossed arms, still facing Richie.</p>
<p>Richie stares at him for a moment before copying his position. “You’re not fucked up, though, you realize that, right?”</p>
<p>Eddie curls one of his hands into a fist and doesn’t say anything.</p>
<p>“This town is fucked and our high school and your mom’s fucked up, like literally so messed up, but it’s not you, Eds, you’ve got to know that.”</p>
<p>Richie finishes speaking and Eddie just stares at him because that’s probably the most passionate he’s heard Richie speak about anything.</p>
<p>“Rich...” Eddie starts, but can’t think of what to say because Richie quite possibly said the nicest thing he’s ever said to him, in the form of a sentence with multiple F bombs. Only Trashmouth Tozier.</p>
<p>The silence is stretching, long and heavy and thick, and Richie is looking at Eddie and Eddie is looking at Richie and then—</p>
<p>And then Richie is opening his big mouth. </p>
<p>“I know what’ll cheer you up!” Richie says, grin spreading across his face. From inside his backpack he pulls out another comic. It takes Eddie all of two seconds to realize that it is not in fact a comic.</p>
<p>It’s a Playboy.</p>
<p>“Told you I found the good stuff!” Richie says. He wastes no time in opening it up and splaying it out in front of them. It opens to a woman sprawled naked in a position Eddie knows is very sexual. A jolt of fear goes through him and he gulps. The woman’s eyes bore into him, wide and eerie.</p>
<p>Richie’s talking loudly, asking Eddie what he rates her boobs, her butt, her this, her that, but Eddie’s not listening.</p>
<p>Once, years ago, Eddie walked in on his mother changing. It was traumatic for both parties, his mother letting out a loud squawk that sent him back to his room at breakneck speed. </p>
<p>The girl in the magazine is nothing like Eddie’s mother. Where she had fat and wrinkles, this girl has nothing but smooth, taut skin covering a lean body. She’s beautiful, Eddie thinks, something out of an old Italian Renaissance painting they might have seen the time their class took a trip to the Portland Museum.</p>
<p>Despite this, the girl doesn’t make him feel anything. It’s the same as seeing his mother changing, the same as seeing Bev stripped down to her underwear and bra when they go swimming. Nothing, nada, zilch.</p>
<p>And maybe that’s the problem.</p>
<p>Eddie sucks in a breath, quick and fast and maybe a little too loud because Richie turns to him as fast as flipping a light switch. </p>
<p>“You like it?” Richie asks with a grin, scrunching up his thick eyebrows. He must realize about halfway through that Eddie’s not excited, because his expression starts to fade, smile drooping like the illustration of someone with a stroke Eddie saw in his mother’s copy of the Merck Manual.</p>
<p>“You okay, Eds?” Richie asks, and despite the unwanted nickname, his tone is serious, or at least as serious as Richie Tozier ever is.</p>
<p>Eddie can’t do this, can’t do Richie Tozier staring at him, their bodies pressed against each other all down one side, not now. He pulls himself up into a sitting position and presses his back against the headboard, the magazine sitting next to him. He takes another breath, sharp and quick and pulls his knees up to his chest.</p>
<p>“Do you need your inhaler?” Richie asks and there’s no judgement in his voice even though they’ve known tacitly for years Eddie doesn’t have asthma.</p>
<p>(That doesn’t stop him from collecting inhalers, keeping them in his locker and his backpack and the drawer beside his bed, just in case, because he hates hates hates feeling like he can’t breathe.)</p>
<p>Eddie shakes his head. “I’m good, Rich, it’s just...” He shakes his head again and hopes that’ll clear it.</p>
<p>Richie pulls himself into a sitting position, the magazine, forgotten for now, slipping down beneath the wall and the mattress. Richie isn’t looking at him anymore, his eyes now trained down to Eddie’s old airplane comforter, playing absentmindedly with one of the loose threads.</p>
<p>“You know, it’s okay if...if this isn’t your thing, right?” Richie says the last part all in one burst, so quick Eddie’s almost not sure he heard him right.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>Eddie’s heart is pounding because he thinks he knows what Richie’s talking about.</p>
<p>“I mean,” Richie gives the thread a hard yank and it further unwinds itself from Eddie’s comforter. If this was any other moment, Eddie would tell him to fucking stop it. “If Playboys and um. Girls, uh. Aren’t your thing, you know.”</p>
<p>Richie finishes speaking and air between them feels charged with an unknown entity. “I’m not—“</p>
<p>Eddie stops because he’s not sure that’s quite true. He feels like he’s going to throw up, right on top of Richie’s hands that are still tugging tugging tugging. He wills himself not to because throwing up is fucking gross and, moreover, he doesn’t want to prove his mom right that he’s sick.</p>
<p>(But maybe this whole conversation is proving that he’s sick, huh, <em>Eds</em>?)</p>
<p>“Like, I mean, I like this shit and all, but I’d, ya know, like it if it was the other kind too. Yeah.”</p>
<p>Eddie sucks in air. “You mean you’re...?”</p>
<p>He leaves the question opened ended.</p>
<p>Richie finally looks up, eyes big and wide and nervous, but Eddie thinks there’s a little hope behind them. “Maybe? Like half and half, maybe? I don’t know.”</p>
<p>“Like the creamer shit?” Eddie can’t help himself from blurting, thinking about the quart his mother keeps in the fridge with its cartoon cow on the front.</p>
<p>Something in Richie’s expression breaks, and some of the nervousness dissipates. Then, he’s laughing and Eddie’s laughing, the sounds filling the room, both boys too distracted to worry about Sonia Kaspbrak sleeping downstairs.</p>
<p>When they finally stop, there’s a moment when they’re just sitting there, smiles on their faces, breathing in and out. They’re sharing the same air, Eddie thinks, in and out, in and out and maybe they’re sharing more than that too.</p>
<p>Eddie’s the one who closes the gap, not out of any conscious thought, but out of a connection to some dream state, some subconscious desire.</p>
<p>Their lips meet and Eddie feels like his lips have just been struck by lightning. Good lightning. Richie’s lips are rough and chapped, in stark contrast to his smooth skin that barely ever has stubble, not yet at least. </p>
<p>It’s not a good kiss. It’s very probably a bad kiss. (It’s not like either of them have any experience, despite Richie’s tendency to talk.)</p>
<p>Nonetheless, it feels amazing.</p>
<p>Eddie pulls back after what seems like both a millisecond and an eternity, but was probably about ten seconds. His heart is beating fast and his lips are tingling and his hairs are on edge and there’s a fucking part of him that’s telling him that Richie’s about to give him a black eye, right here, right now and oh, God, what will his mom say.</p>
<p>Instead, Richie brakes out in a grin, a big one that lights up his entire face. “Fuck, Eds, there are other ways to get me to shut up!</p>
<p>They both crack up at that, hysterical laughter that causes them to fall all over each other, arms and legs tangling.</p>
<p><em>I love it when you call me Eds</em>, Eddie thinks, but doesn’t say because he’s not ready for that just yet.</p>
<p>When they’ve finally calmed down, half sitting, half lying against the headboard, Richie’s fingers carding themselves through Eddie’s hair gently, Eddie says “I’m probably not half and half. Probably full...you know.”</p>
<p>He still can’t get himself to say the word.</p>
<p>“Milk’s good too, Eds,” Richie says and Eddie laughs into his arm.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading!!:D</p></blockquote></div></div>
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